Saturday, May 17, 2008

In Which I Am Temporarily Deflated

You know that part of Oedipus Rex where Oedipus is all like, "Tra la la, I'm king and I'm married to a sexy chick and I got the world on string, dancing on a rainbow," and then gods are all like, "Ha ha dude, you murdered your father and that hot chick you married is your mom," and Oedipus is all like "Ohhhhhhh nooooooooooooo" and claws his own eyes out?

Well, I feel somewhat akin to Oedipus right now. Not because I'm guilty of patricide and incest (shut up! gross!) but because the knitting gods have chosen this moment to knock back a few beers and have a giggle at my expense.

I was fewer than ten rows from the end of the first repeat of the Wedding Ring Shawl center when I noticed something. See the little green arrow?

It's pointing to the row I skipped. Yup. Just skipped right over it. Didn't knit it at all. Left it out. Golly! Whoops!

That row mostly serves to put a space between the two beads inside the lozenge, so I didn't notice anything was goofy until I'd worked half the second row of lozenges in the repeat.

Then I said something emphatic and unsuitable for general audiences that rhymes with "Truck! Pluck! You smother clucking Tina Yotherbucker! What the ducking plucking truck! Zit! Zit!"

I could keep knitting, and chances are nobody would ever notice. But I would notice. I'd spread out the finished piece and the absence of that row would be the only thing I'd notice.

So, bloody but unbowed, I rip. This is an epic project; I'll do it well or not at all. It is the mature way. The noble way.

And if you tell me I should have used lifelines so help me beeotch I will gouge your piggy eyes out with my own two thumbs.

109 comments:

Oh, Franklin, honey.... I feel your pain. So totally feel your pain. I've been knitting the Irish Diamond Shawl from Folk Shawls, and it's taken me 2 months to get to the point where I am now -- 30 rows from the end. I've started calling it the Hateful Shawl, because the damn thing does not want to be knit. I've had to tink and rip and frog the stupid thing more times than I'm comfortable saying.

I won't tell you to use lifelines, because you know that. All I can do is empathize, wince in solidarity and lace-knitting brotherhood, and pray that the ripping isn't too frustrating for you.

See, this is what makes you a good knitter and me a bad knitter. I would, when finished doing the rhyming song, would say "Oh look, a design feature" and leave it there. I just hope no one looks too closely at my lace. Ya, know, I have always depended on the blindness of strangers.

Argh! I feel your pain. I've done exactly the same thing on a lace stole I'm working on - completely missed the row then noticed five repeats later. It's staying like it is - it's going to bug the hell out of me, but no-one except me is ever going to notice (I've pointed out the mistake to about 30 people - knitters and non-knitters, and only one has seen it) and it's being gifted to the otherside of the country where I'm not going to have to see it again. Your far braver than I.

Yokele, now is the time to go to your happy place. No, not the liquor cabinet -- that's Dolores' happy place. Sit in front of your alter, meditate, try to learn the lesson the universe is presenting. Then, calmly and serenely, begin to rip back, stitch by stitch, and try to incorporate that lesson. You might want to include a dharma doll in this exercise.

Did you ever think that the universe might be trying to tell you to use lifelines? I'M not telling you, so don't pluck MY eyeballs out. Is it possible you may eradicating some flibertigibbit karma.

Love you. If you want, I'll take a day off work and tink for you. (That's the mark of a true friend!)

ARgh. Lifelines only work if you are lucky enough to have them in the right place. I move mine every few rows, so I probably would have had to frog just as far back as you.

If it makes you feel any better, I am pregnant and have had to frog something as easy as the baby surprise jacket 7 times already. My stitch markers fall out or I don't pay attention and I keep screwing it up. Ha ha! Madness.

Franklin. I understand. I just did the same thing BUT with a pattern much less complicated. So I basically whizzed through it, got myself a huge expresso packed latte for a reward then went back to it. I am a ripper and it would have made me nuts to leave it. If I had left it there I would have gone nuts.

You're braver than I. I have a nasty error in the Mystery Shawl I was working on so nicely. And I can't even bring myself to do the necessarily fiddling ripping out. I just come across it occasionally and weep softly.

I love your version of Oedipus! so much better than the way we covered it in high school...

And how could I possibly tell you to use lifelines when I don't use them myself? It's not so much that I think I knit so well I don't need them, but more that when I come to a spot where it might be convenient to put it one, I'm in such a situation (like on a plane, with no extra yarn or a darning needle, etc.) where it's impossible to do so. So I shrug mentally and move on. Sometime, though, I'm sure this approach will come back and bite me. hard.

Lifelines wouldn't have helped anyway, because when the Fates are giggling at you you're going to put the lifeline in AFTER the mistake to begin with. Also, me? I have a nasty habit of removing one lifeline after putting in the next one, so if I'd been lifelining that piece I'd already be a couple of lifelines beyond the point where it'd do any good. So totally - no lifeline comments. I suppose we'd also be wise to avoid remarks about attention paid to other coffee-shop customers instead of to lace charts? (Especially given that the coffee-shop episode was so entertaining that I had to read it aloud to three different people?) Yeah, I'll shut up now. Except to offer sincere sympathy, because like so many others here I've been where you are, felt your pain, and responded to it exactly the same way, right down to the last "Zit!" and the last stitch ripped. Sigh. But won't you feel good about it when it's re-done right....

Whenever I set out to make something really nice, I say to myself "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right." Of course, the baby blanket I am working on has some errors, but I don't intend to point them out to anybody. And since I made the same error at every corner, we can go with the 'design element' dodge.

So maybe this will amuse you. You were in my dream a week or two ago. I went to see you to talk to you about something. You, for reasons I cannot imagine, were living in a house I used to own in Syracuse (now you're saying, when hell freezes over...). Anyhow, you said, 'oh good, you can help choose a watch'. We were sitting around, looking at a watch catalog and talking about the merits of digital vs analog and liner vs spatial time, other folks were around, maybe knitting, I don't remember. One of your housemates came in (must be Dolores made into a woman, she was kinda bitchy) and she said 'ok, you all need to leave now'. So, I'm collecting up my stuff (no idea what stuff) and something had fallen into the couch cushion, so I figured I should check under the couch. And what did I see? Rows of stacks of hand-knit socks, all with incredible color work on the cuffs (like Latvian socks), and a wonderful aroma of good wooly lanolin. I thought to myself...wow. So, you'll be relived to know it was just an odd dream, and very unlike the odd dream I recently had that started with me sniffing Leanord Nimoy's hair... ahem.

Much empathy. Now it's the time for the zen of the thing (hard as that can be to remember). I don't use lifelines. I'd rip, just as you are. Perfection is not required. Excellence is worth the extra effort.

Philosophy of lifelines: I figure the time I'd spend putting in lifelines in a few decades of knitting is (1) more extensive than and (2) less enjoyable than the alternative (messing around getting that last row picked up right).

I've used one once. It was fine. I put it in because I *knew* there was a 75% chance I'd be ripping back.

"This is an epic project; I'll do it well or not at all." Good for you! It's YOUR knitting. There's really no reason not to rip, if you know you'll be dissatisfied with the finished project. The only loss is your knitting time.

Oy vey. You're a good and dedicated man to rip. I myself have the habit of starting every lace project over three times because I always make stupid-ass mistakes. But if were as far along as you - I'm not sure even my OCD would get me to rip back all those rows. I hope you have lots of good wine around to get you through it (rewards for afterwards, not before of course!)

Oh! Can I feel your pain! I have used lifelines and not used them. Doesn't matter. If the Knitting Gods want to screw with you, they will find a way.Do a little chanting and plan a great reward upon completion. That usually works for me.In my case, it took 3 years before I could knit myself a pair of socks without having a major meltdown at least 3 times.

You are not, contrary to your feelings about the whole thing, Sisyphus. When I have to go back to de-screw-up my knitting, I try to remember something the Harlot wrote somewhere (and I paraphrase); I like knitting,and correcting mistakes is knitting, so I am just knitting more.

OK, now - you know me for a plebeian common knitter of toques and projects suitable for the Home for Demented Underachievers....but having said that, may I suggest merely that -- you're WRONG? In spite of all that poetic language, as well. There IS no problem with the knitting on that shawl. The *problem* is that you somehow got a stoopid green arrow stuck on it! If you get rid of that it'll look just fine (are you sure Dolores didn't put it in there just to give you fits?) Oh, and my verification word should be added to your Arsenal of Foul Language; I know I'm adding it to mine: PONGF (in your pipe and smoke it) Or alternatively, "Pongf, and the horse you rode in on!"

One is a Anne Hanson's Beefields and I had to rip back most of the swarm section. Because it patterns on every row, there's no graceful way to rip back just a couple of repeats. It's going into hibernation while I recuperate from the rip.

seriously, i rip for things other people swear isnt there. but i see them. ive finished huge projects to the point of being ready to seam it all together and then at that point, decided i should have changed this one tiny thing that again, nobody but me would notice.i agree, if you are engaging in an project regardless of size or whether its a gift or for you, why let anything that isnt just how you want it stand??uh, i also let huge obvious mistakes stay, you know, cause THOSE dont bother me.. im a bit loopy. have i mentioned that before?

Ouch. I didn't use lifelines when I made my first shawl, and spent a lot of time tinking back (I tink many rows, because I have a hard time ripping back even with a good basic wool). I just didn't like how they felt in the project.

The time we spend on projects like this, aiming for perfection and doing the work to achieve it are good for us... or so I keep telling myself.

Franklin, dear, from one perfectionist to another, will it make you feel any better to know that I did exactly the same thing (skip a row and swear like you did) in my Unst Lace Stole and didn't notice it until, like, 26 rows later? Of course I ripped it back and fixed it, as far as I'm concerned there isn't any other choice.

Thank you for the funniest moment of my day...No, make that the funniest moment of my week. All the more poignant because, as I near completion of my first lace shawl, I, perfectionist sur tout, have had the exact same reaction. But I've left them as momentos of my first 'real lace'. I'm sure my mother-in-law won't mind. I'm over here crying. Let me go read that again. Thanks for the moment. And the work is beautiful.

But if you enjoyed knitting it the first time, you'll enjoy it one more time, too. If only I had a dollar for every time I've done that -- well, I might not actually be rich, what with inflation and all -- but I'd definitely be taking a nice vacation this year.

Franklin when I read your blog on the 6th and then more importantly on the 8th, I decided that I will try lace knitting. Something small, as you suggested. While I obviously have not had this particular pain, I do know the pain of frogging. After getting up from the floor from laughing, I became even MORE determined to do this and I am sure there will be some frogging, I am, like you, a perfectionist...I'm just hoping that I don't cry and that I do what you did....swear, rip and re-do. BRAVO!

On some thing or other, I was tinking back several rows in a public place. A novice knitter watched, intrigued by this mysterious stitch action, and finally asked, "What *are* you doing?"

I'm not even that fastidious, and have been known to fudge lots of knitting, but if it is going to show glaringly, it must be ripped. Mmmmm, unless you skip the same row in the other lozenge sections? Then you have just modified the pattern. I'm curious now, though, what will you do with an enormous fire engine red lace shawl, with or without imperfections?

Learn to embrace your imperfections. I say that only because I cast off a very, very easy lace scarf last night - gorgeous yarn, graceful pattern, shot through with the knitting quirks and idiosyncrasies that can only mean "I knit this." Otherwise, I'm just a machine. Plus, it was kid mohair and an bitch to tink.

I can empathize fully. I knit at least 12 repeats of lace pattern in Orangina and made a mistake. I spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to fix the mistake, then ripped. Sometimes that perfectionist gene stinks.

Oh! oh. oh.. that makes my heart ache for you. so sorry! i applaud your need to rip back - think you can explain it to my husband? *sigh* And I'm not even a pefectionist. May this be your only "trucking' mistake in such beauty.

This may have been a moment when the dear ElizZim might have said to incorporate your fashion-joi-de-vie into the pattern.

But I'm with you. No one may have noticed and you may have been able to cross your eyes until you saw the shawl pirouetting like a pirate in a tutu and still that one little row would have stood out.

No, correct that, the absense of that row would have stood out. And frankly, a wedding shawl is prolly not a moment to rediscover zero with the Mayans. If you get a little further verklempt please just cry into a nice pinot noir. It can be quite therapeutic.

Oh, gawd, just when I was going to suggest maybe using a lifeline, the last paragraph jumped up and made me laugh so hard, it threw me into a coughing fit. Just call me beeotch. (I'm now using a lifelife in a swatch, just to see if I can get through the thing!)

Thank you for making this mistake, because I needed a laugh, and while I hate to laugh at another's lace misfortune, having had a bit of my own, I actually laughed out loud, and that isn't easy to accomplish on Mondays. Thanks, you are one funny Tina Yotherbucker!!

It's a good thing you explained the mistake ... because I sure couldn't see it by just looking at the arrow. But then ... you're a GREAT knitter and I'm a dabbler. I would have ripped back myself for a BIG mistake tho. I only leave the "little" ones in and forget they were even there.

The problem is...I truly BELIEVE in lifelines. But I also am truly SURE I don't need them...until I definitely DO. Always, that's too late.(sigh)Rip-it dear. You're ABOSLUTELY right it will be the ONLY thing you notice. Just ask me what I see when I look at my (much, much simpler) Queen of Hearts? Yup. The row I call "the Broken Hearts!"lololAnd I LOVE your creativity on what you really said...!(thank goodness, there's really no relation between you and Oedipus, beyond the "gouging out eyes" thingy!)(((hugs)))

...you don't know me, and I think I've only commented, maybe...once? But I'm one of your biggest new fans (definitely - just ask my wife how much I talk about you, and always as if I KNOW you) and I have to register here my EXTREME jealousy that you're going to Toronto for the Harlot's bday/wwkip day!!!! I sooooooooo want to be you right now! Up until this moment, I just wanted to be your best friend, but now, I want to be you. I've never wanted to be a man before....let alone a man who has sex with men; lesbian thing and all....have fun!!!!!

You are better than me. When I make a mistake, I point it out to my knitting group and say "I don't have to remove it, it's not a big deal". Then I go home and have spasms of guilt and low self-esteem and next thing I'm ripping it out. When I show it to the group next time, they point and laugh and remind me that it wasn't "a big deal". Grrrrrrrrr.

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